HTC Desire free at Telus until the end of the year

They’re offering the HTC Desire for free until the end of this year. Of course, this is the original Desire, not the newer and shinier Desire HD or Desire Z, so the phone probably isn’t high up on everyone’s wish list – however, it still is a very good performer even by today’s standards. Remember, there’s still a 1 GHz processor in there, and so far, HTC has updated it to the latest versions of Android quite fast. It is unknown at this point whether or not the Desire will get Android 2.3, but technically speaking, if the Nexus One gets upgraded (and it probably will), there’s no reason for the Desire not to be, since their innards are identical.

The caveat for Telus’ offer is what you probably were expecting: getting the Desire for free does require you sign a 3-year contract. But since that’s pretty much the norm in Canada, perhaps it isn’t such a bad deal after all. You are getting a smartphone for free.